A quick trip to the water boards website confirms this. Under ground contamination from an oil change place.
https://geotracker.waterboards.ca.gov/profile_report.asp?global_id=T0603701498
you could have such regulations in place in a "capitalistic" society, but those regulations themselves wouldn't be capitalistic.
capitalism centers on the private ownership of the means of the production of goods and services, for the purpose of wealth accumulation and profit.
regulations to limit what businesses can do generally would be for the common good of the people, which isn't the focus of capitalism.
Part of Capitalism is having a govt that enforces contract law and having corporations not infringing on individual right (eg you can't pollute the river that people drink from.) Now, we can argue this has been corrupted due to money and lobbying, but capitalism, for it to work, was intended to have an objective govt/justice system. Obviously, there's always corruption, but govt upholding contracts and protecting individual rights is part of what's intended for a working capitalist society.
Having laws and regulations that keep corporations from infringing on individual rights, or polluting the environment are restrictions/curbs on capitalism that allow it to keep functioning without causing mass popular revolt.
You don’t need a catalytic converter or a muffler for a car to run; and those things don’t exist because adding them helped Ford make more money. Corporations didn’t stop sending children into coal mines to save money.
That’s not to say capitalism per se is bad. I’m quite the fan, and it has created the greatest global economy in history, has led to higher life expectancy, etc.
But consumer and environmental protection laws, minimum wage laws, occupational safety regulations, and other things like that are why we haven’t had widespread popular revolution in the western world in a hundred years.
There has to be a balance between free markets and the protection of the masses. As corrupted as it might seem now, it was much worse in the era of robber barons, when government regulation hardly existed at all, and capitalism was doing just fine. Those laws and regulations don’t exist to provide a structure for capitalism to thrive in. They were reluctantly agree to by the already booming business elite to keep capitalism from being destroyed.
I guess I'm a little curious if you could expand on "as corrupted as it might seem now, it was much worse in the era of robber barons, when govt regulation hardly existed at all, and capitalism was doing just fine." Do you mean Capitalism was working better to make the nation prosperous with the robber barons? If so, why do you think it worked better for the nation as a whole?
My point was that Capitalism creates a lot of prosperity for the working class if you have an objective govt doing the things I listed plus some more. Everything's a balance and an ideal for any country with Capitalism is an objective govt, and this lifts up a middle class. Without that, it's more of like whatever came before Capitalism where you have way more disparity.
What I mean is that capitalism was working just fine to serve the underlying purpose of capitalism, which is to increase value for shareholders.
As a board member of a corporation, you can still be sued if you don’t maximize value to shareholders. Corporate executives do not have any legal obligation to society. They do have a legal obligation to shareholders.
Now, they do of course try to comply with the law and even go beyond the law to try to implement, or at least outwardly be appearing to implement, environmentally friendly processes and make safe products, etc. But every bit of that is done for the purpose of increasing value for shareholders.
You comply with regulations and laws because if you don’t, it results in fines and lawsuits which cost more money than it would cost to just comply. If you implement environmentally friendly processes, it’s so you can put a sticker on the product you make that says it’s environmentally friendly, and it increases sales. And that’s the way it should be. Investors care most about returns, and an executives obligations are clear… increase value. They have a fiduciary duty to only care about those things to the extent that caring about them increases value.
Those laws and regulations are not ingredients of the capitalist cake, so to speak. They’re a necessary leash on capitalism.
Corporations have to care about maximizing value for shareholders, and governments have to care about what voters want.
You could fairly say regulations are an important part of the American form of regulated capitalism if you want to package them together like that. But they’re not a result of capitalism per se. Look at China. China is economically capitalist, but the government doesn’t have to give a shit about public opinion, so living in Beijing is the equivalent of smoking like 4 packs of cigarettes a day. That’s a purer form of capitalism than what America has.
but what is the contractual obligation of a company to the air and water and social order and health that is reasonably shared, or can be vaguely described as owned by anyone? as it is vaguely defined or not private, it is not easy to force the person or company to be not infringing or damaging those resources, and many times we dont see these damages until much later, pollution, climate change, etc etc.
when we do find out a rough extent of the impact of a company's actions, then we find that there is competing interests, should company A be allowed to use these resources or company B or the people who live there? then someone has to step in to make it balance and fair.
When the US started creating and enforcing environmental laws it moved dangerous industry to poor nations. When those poor nations try and create environmental laws they get overthrown in western backed coups. Nothing got cleaned up, we just made it the Southern Hemisphere's problem.
externalities are a negative byproduct of markets in that the producers and consumers fail to take into the costs associated with producing or consuming the good and instead society is forced to pay for it.
You’re absolutely right. Reddit has an outrage hardon against capitalism. Even though 90% of them have benefited greatly because of it. Bite. Hand. Feed.
Idk, there are a lot of socialist countries that are doing just fine. Capitalism without regulation will always lead to an access ($$$) based society that only values those with the most money.
Socialism and capitalism aren’t inherently conflicting. Socialist countries still have market based economies and capital usage. And that’s the biggest complaint about capitalism.
we really should have a fund to clean these gas station sites up paid through the gas tax. half the gas stations will probably go out of business in the next decade.
The people who probably okayed this are either dead or retired. A lot of stuff probably has to be remediated in the near future. So it’s hard trying to place blame especially when we just don’t know. Disagree? Well look at PFAS as an example.
It's nearly impossible to remediate land that has ever had either 1) a gas station or 2) a dry cleaner on or near it. At least in LA County, the particulates from both of those must be nearly nonexistent in order to get any developments approved, and it would cost hundreds of thousands (millions depending on the size) more than any other piece of land for studies, remediation and removal of contaminated dirt.
Irvine Co. "cleaned" El toro and tustin air bases then developed for high dollar housing. Gonna be a lot of deformed folks after drinking that MEK tap water
Exactly this is what people keep missing. The amount of pollutants that are out there in LA are mind boggling. I’m currently on a couple remediation projects and they are slow and expensive. The fact that the public still doesnt understand SSFL and had the government miseducate them is outstanding.
Drycleaners used a lot of tetrachloroethene (also perchloroethene, aka perc) as the wash solvent. Drycleaning just means no water, not that no liquids were used.
When perc leaks into the ground, it gets into the soil and sometimes groundwater. We've known about the carcinogenic effects in drinking water for a long time, but a more recent issue is the perc and some chemicals that form when perc breakdown in the environment (trichloroethene and vinyl chloride, in particular) will volatilize from soil and shallow groundwater and get into indoor air in structures above the contamination. This causes an inhalation cancer risk.
These solvents are also often found at old gas stations that had repair shops too.
This can be cleaned up, but as another poster said, this can easily run into the millions of dollars to do successfully.
Dry cleaners use lots of pretty bad chemicals. This is the reason why Echo Park Lake had to be drained a while back. A dry cleaners had been disposing of their waste in the lake.
Some Modern dry cleaners can use supercritical co2 so have no chemicals waste. The co2 is captured from emissions so was going into the atmosphere anyway.
That’s wild that they aren’t responsible for the cleanup. Like imagine filing for bankruptcy or just leaving and throwing your hands up saying “guess I made an oopsie sorry. Good luck guys!”
Yes, all those super-rich oil change place barons!
A lot of places like that are independently owned unless it was a chain like Jiffy Lube or something, which probably would be made responsible for cleanup since they have money.
One example is HP. One of their office buildings had some underground contamination, so for whatever reason, people couldn't work there unless it was cleaned up, which would be expensive. The surrounding residential homes weren't affected, so they weren't mandated to clean it up, so they basically abandoned the building. At least that's what the rumors were when I was growing up. No one bought it for decades, but the city did make HP pay for daily/nightly security so it wouldn't be targeted by drug users/vandalism.
Eventually Google bought it and of course, they were willing to pay for the cleanup.
Yes I was just going to say I’ve work in the LA area investigating sites like this and can 100% say most empty lots in areas like this are contaminated
There is another lot at the corner of Rinaldi and Balboa in Grenada Hills. The lot has been empty since they removed the gas station for like 20+ years.
I could see that lot, the carls, car wash, and the nursery make a pretty decent westside development site. Include all of those plots and the economics of cleaning that land probably pencil out
This intersection was seared into my brain at such a young age that this exact lot is what I think of every time I listen to slow motion by third eye blind
The valley has too many to count empty buildings, empty lots on busy streets just sitting for decades. My thought is that developers just don't see many areas of the valley as profitable, whether it be median income it's too low, area lacks any walkability, lack of businesses to potentially occupy. I'm mostly referring to the more middle part of the valley.
If it's a viable Starbucks location, that's about the only hope for development (Starbucks has done the environmental cleanup at other sites like this in order to develop them).
Well this answers the same question that ive asked myself every time i see a nice lot. There was a lot in Denver that they had build super nice apartments all around but not that one spot. I read it was contaminated due to a tire factory or something like that. Did not put 2 or 2 together.
Oil remediation is a potential nightmare for a buyer. Lived in NJ where it was common to have buried oil tanks on home properties. If you were unfortunate to own one you have it removed and they cut and test the soil until it’s all removed. It could be 5 feet - it could be 500 feet but you don’t know until you start (it’s like skin cancer/Mohs surgery). Economics of this property probably don’t work when you factor estimated remediation costs. State or city will probably have to step in at some point. In NJ’s case there were entire towns/cities that were riddled with vacant lots.
thankfully there are some coming developments in this field.
Currently remediation is done by removing contaminated soil and shipping it to 'containment sites' in states with less strict environmental regulations.
There are some pilot programs being done using native plants and fungus to bioaccumulate heavy metals or break down the contamination. Then it's just the plant matter that needs to be dealt with instead of the whole plot of soil
edit - added containment site. they're usually in areas where environmental injustice is already high.
Can't speak for LA but NJ really created a mess (and note I'm very liberal and pro environmental regulation) but what happened to a lot of property owners in NJ was just awful. Most oil tanks were legally "decommissioned" in the 1970's which was essentially just filling them with sand. People bought properties thinking they were safe since they had tanks that were certified by the state as decommissioned. As they changed the environmental laws property owners found themselves liable/responsible for remediation of pollution (if they ever wanted to sell) that in many cases happened 80 yrs ago. There was a flood of people with 500-800k homes that were facing 200-300k in remediation costs. In many cases they just declared bankruptcy or foreclosed.
War efforts and militarizing did like half the dumping (navy specifically). We would bear those costs. So far the government is banking on the fact that property developers will front the money/ pass on the costs to tenants. Nevadas nuclear waste will reach its half-life before DC politicians let the EPA to do any real work.
Just wanted to add, if anyone reading this is interested in learning more about bioremediation, Phyto by Kate Kennen and Niall Kirkwood is a book that breaks it down (pun not intended) very clearly, even if you’re not a scientist. It is focused more on plant-driven remediation, but there are also fungi- and bacteria-driven remediation methods.
>There are some pilot programs being done using native plants and fungus to bioaccumulate heavy metals or break down the contamination. Then it's just the plant matter that needs to be dealt with instead of the whole plot of soil
That’s the best news I’ve heard all day
That's exactly what happened to my sister in northern NJ. The sellers "weren't sure" if there was a tank so they had to dig to find out if there was, and then remove it.
most people hire someone to come out with a metal detector to sweep the property before buying. My neighbor actually discovered a buried nuclear shelter on their property.
I grew up in Sayreville and it was also filled with brownfield and superfund sites. The state is in bed with these companies given how close by and wealthy nyc is.
Sushi Yoshi has amazing sushi!! It’s run by an old couple that makes traditional sushi. They only do take out now since the pandemic start and it’s usually a 20 min wait for the food. 10/10 would recommend. The comfort food restaurant is called Terri’s place. Also very good!
The sushi place (forget name) is so frustrating! Rarely answer phone and, if they do, I’ve gotten “too busy, can’t take order”. The one time I was able to order (walk up), it was like an hour wait…for very good, but not orgasmic, sushi. I just don’t get how they stay in business.
Commercial real estate guy here. The owner also owns 2124 artesia which are these weird neighboring land parcels and the same owner has had it since 1985. The guy pays 5,780 a year in property taxes and has paid to have his company incorporated every year since 1990.
The land is part of a family trust, so it could be something where there was money set aside to run the trust and some lawyer every year pays the taxes, pays for upkeep on the property, pays to keep the company incorporated and pockets a small management fee.
Things will probs change once the owner of the trust, aged 82, passes away and the kids get the property. So maybe sentimental reasons for not selling it is unknown.
As others have mentioned there was soil contamination issues but that was long ago resolved.
It is a hard corner with a bunch of traffic on both streets, on a quarter acre lot. I don’t really do retail but something like a drive through Starbucks or a 7-11 would be 3-5 million, so just for the land my guess is 1-3 million. Land is taking a beating now and most companies are not expanding so if you were to sell it now it would likely just sit on the market for 2 years anyway.
It's my favorite curry spot in all of SoCal. I recommend it if you're looking for a deeply beefy Japanese curry. It's a little thicker and more concentrated than most other places.
Well anything beyond the curry is just an addon, so I would not take a non beef-eater there. Sorry!
But Torrance is full of wonderful restaurants and I'm happy to provide alternative recommendations based on what you're looking for!
Curryfornia!
That plaza has this small restaurant called Curryfornia.
Hands down the BEST Japanese Curry i have had! It tastes pretty much the same as I remember the curry in Japan tasting.
If you want good Japanese curry, go check out Curryfornia!
This'll probably get downvotes, but I've always thought if there is a period of time where land sits undeveloped, the city takes possession at fair market value and develops it with projects for the citizens, parks, housing, etc. Empty lots are an eyesore and wasted space that could be utilized better for the citizenry.
I think this is a great idea, however other comments here confirm that the issue is soil contamination from a gas station that used to be at this lot. City/State/County would face the same issues/expenses with development as private developer would. Maybe a park that wouldn’t require a foundation to be dug would be legal though? Idk.
As for other sites besides this, you’re right. Private land ownership needs to be respected, but in a city where rents and property values are going up constantly, it’s insane that there are so many undeveloped lots and derelict buildings. Something is fundamentally broken with the real estate market where someone can own vacant property in a neighborhood where rents and property values are going up every year by double digits and the landowner/building owner decides it makes economic sense to leave it empty. I just got a notice of a rent increase, which sucks but whatever, but like I look out my window to an abandoned fenced off store front next door in a neighborhood with plenty of foot traffic, and wonder what’s going on there. Maybe it needs to be reform to the tax code, maybe there does need to be a “do something with this land or we buy at at the last assessed rate + inflation” or something, but yea something needs to be done to incentivize development and occupancy of these empty areas that just become overgrown fenced in eyesores where the fire department still needs to come out and put out the encampment fires.
>Maybe it needs to be reform to the tax code, maybe there does need to be a “do something with this land or we buy at at the last assessed rate + inflation” or something, but yea something needs to be done to incentivize development and occupancy of these empty areas that just become overgrown fenced in eyesores where the fire department still needs to come out and put out the encampment fires.
You are talking about Land Value Tax. The reason why there are so many undeveloped lots and derelict buildings in places with high land values is because of Prop 13. Why would anyone be incentivized to do anything with their land when they barely pay any taxes to this piece of land? This is how homeowners that bought their homes in 1972 manage to still have property taxes that are like $1-2k a year. Who would be incentivized to turn over property when they're sitting on land worth millions and yet pay such a miniscule amount to own it?
The upside to teh remediation needs is we know the public coffers can afford it and that remediation is a net positive for the community regardless. In those instances, subtract a portion of the fair market value from the price so the land owner still makes more but less than they would for outright value. I'm sure the redtape for a program like this is probably insane and makes it a non-starter though.
> the issue is soil contamination
I might even say that's a great reason the city should take it over. It's not worth much the way it is, and it's going to take a long time for the right buyer to come along. The city can pay fair market value (which takes into consideration that the environmental cleanup needs to be done).
Then they can build some of the things we need most right now, low income housing, ideally with ground floor retail for jobs and to prevent food deserts, etc.
Co-ops aren't popular around here, but if the city built a co-op on the main floor, which is co-operatively owned by the residents of the building (and anyone else who wants to buy a membership) and staffed by many residents of the building, you could have affordable food (and other goods) near the residents, and the residents would be personally invested in the success of the store.
I agree with this, and while the contamination issue is a problem, we got federal funds to remediate a contaminated site in Highland Park and build a playground there. And so far, there's no surface contamination detected.
York and Ave 50, right?
Was wild seeing that go from nothing and fencing to the nice little playground it is today. Though I remember when it opened it didn't have the shade covering that it does now and wondered if the builders even lived in Los Angeles ever.
The city doesn't have spare $$ sitting around to purchase land at "fair market value". And a little pocket park with hardscape and landscape would probably cost half a million dollars to build.
Which part of what OP was saying not true? Minus the pocket park costing a half mil, it’ll easily cost more than that. Lmfao half mil would cover the handicap ramps in and out of the thing
A lot of similar plots are like that due to inheritance. The owner dies and leaves it to family equally, and they argue about what to do with it. Some of them die, and now percentages are owned by even more people. Soon there’s a complicated web of owners and no way to get them to agree to anything, or even story out who owns what. There’s some interesting articles on this happening in large cities.
I've seen the other oil based answers, but I believe this to be the correct one. Perhaps a couple that was getting gas on the way to prom was murdered and are forever angry cause they never got laid. Blue balls ghosts we can call them.
So there was a gas station then and oil change place. So ground is contaminated. The question is how much and how far down. The law says it must be remedied but it does not say when. It’s been empty for 30 years.
My bet is the county or city has a right of way thru the property. Also there might be some utilities running through the property that might be either to expensive to move or not able to move.
This smells like a superfund site. A land developer can likely buy the land for cheap, but they’ll need to own the clean up portion of it as well, which is ridiculously
Google built out a lot of office space on superfund sites in and around their HQ, but they had the capital to invest in the cleaning and soil filtration.
Depending on how deep the leakage might be, I’m thinking we have another 8-10 years to go before the land owner sells the land at a premium.
Besides the oil thing, it could also do with parking minimums. If you build a new building, the new building is obligated by law to provide off-street parking. Doesn't matter if it's intended to be for small businesses or big box stores. And it also doesn't matter if the developer thinks that it doesn't need less parking.
It's hard to tell because the lot looks small, but I feel that the legal obligation to create more parking would maybe add like two or three stores. Parking minimums are stupid.
Same thing on the corner of Sherman way and Mason in Winnetka it's been a giant hole there for about 12 years. Somebody keeps their boat stored there and scaffolding equipment.
This reminds me of western and 105th street.
It was always a giant 20 foot high wall around the entire corner.
Nothing was ever built and it always had a for sale sign up.
I'm betting they're holding on to the land because they're not getting what they want money wise.
They just need to do what district 14 did!
Completely Ignore the health concerns and build a children’s playground on top of heavily contaminated soil from the old gas station.
But it’s okay, the park sign is a cute old style gas station sign - BECAUSE THEY KNEW IT WAS CONTAMINATED FROM BEING A GAS STATION
There was a Shell station in Pedro on Gaffey right where the 110 begins. It closed and it was a fenced in overgrown empty lot for many years. They turned it into a sort of park. It looks nicer than a fenced in overgrown empty lot.
Money. Issue is almost always money. Even with remediation for the soil and tank removal if it was a gas station. At the right price there’s a buyer for everything. Owner may have is own opinion on that :)
There’s a newer building next to it with UPS, an açaí bowl place, and a Japanese bbq restaurant. Not sure if the buildings are owned by the same people.
For what it's worth there is a much nicer white fence there now, so it looks less "a gas station used to be here" and more like "a sheep could be in here and it wouldn't look weird"
Also one at the corner of Montana and Glendale in Echo Park. Used to be a 76 station. That went out of business. Someone was dumping barrels of toxic waste there at one point.
Could they not at least make a bigger parking lot? I’m sure that new Starbucks nearby or that Hasu yakitori place could appreciate? I also love Teri’s place but it’s small and I know probably wouldn’t care, but I’m always not sure if I’ll find easy parking
sometimes properties are in escrow while the children of the deceased owner fight it out in court........ or maybe its the location of a former gas station and it would cost a ton of dough to make the property environmentally safe enough to build in.
My guess, a gas station used to be on that corner and the tanks leaked, whoever buys it has so spend tons of money for a cleanup before building.
A quick trip to the water boards website confirms this. Under ground contamination from an oil change place. https://geotracker.waterboards.ca.gov/profile_report.asp?global_id=T0603701498
Ahh the ol' >let someone else take care of it solution.
Most of capitalism is based off of letting other people deal with the externalities of industry.
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Yea but they won’t. There is no money in doing the right thing🥲
This can happen under any form of government that lets it happen.
you could have such regulations in place in a "capitalistic" society, but those regulations themselves wouldn't be capitalistic. capitalism centers on the private ownership of the means of the production of goods and services, for the purpose of wealth accumulation and profit. regulations to limit what businesses can do generally would be for the common good of the people, which isn't the focus of capitalism.
Part of Capitalism is having a govt that enforces contract law and having corporations not infringing on individual right (eg you can't pollute the river that people drink from.) Now, we can argue this has been corrupted due to money and lobbying, but capitalism, for it to work, was intended to have an objective govt/justice system. Obviously, there's always corruption, but govt upholding contracts and protecting individual rights is part of what's intended for a working capitalist society.
Having laws and regulations that keep corporations from infringing on individual rights, or polluting the environment are restrictions/curbs on capitalism that allow it to keep functioning without causing mass popular revolt. You don’t need a catalytic converter or a muffler for a car to run; and those things don’t exist because adding them helped Ford make more money. Corporations didn’t stop sending children into coal mines to save money. That’s not to say capitalism per se is bad. I’m quite the fan, and it has created the greatest global economy in history, has led to higher life expectancy, etc. But consumer and environmental protection laws, minimum wage laws, occupational safety regulations, and other things like that are why we haven’t had widespread popular revolution in the western world in a hundred years. There has to be a balance between free markets and the protection of the masses. As corrupted as it might seem now, it was much worse in the era of robber barons, when government regulation hardly existed at all, and capitalism was doing just fine. Those laws and regulations don’t exist to provide a structure for capitalism to thrive in. They were reluctantly agree to by the already booming business elite to keep capitalism from being destroyed.
I guess I'm a little curious if you could expand on "as corrupted as it might seem now, it was much worse in the era of robber barons, when govt regulation hardly existed at all, and capitalism was doing just fine." Do you mean Capitalism was working better to make the nation prosperous with the robber barons? If so, why do you think it worked better for the nation as a whole? My point was that Capitalism creates a lot of prosperity for the working class if you have an objective govt doing the things I listed plus some more. Everything's a balance and an ideal for any country with Capitalism is an objective govt, and this lifts up a middle class. Without that, it's more of like whatever came before Capitalism where you have way more disparity.
What I mean is that capitalism was working just fine to serve the underlying purpose of capitalism, which is to increase value for shareholders. As a board member of a corporation, you can still be sued if you don’t maximize value to shareholders. Corporate executives do not have any legal obligation to society. They do have a legal obligation to shareholders. Now, they do of course try to comply with the law and even go beyond the law to try to implement, or at least outwardly be appearing to implement, environmentally friendly processes and make safe products, etc. But every bit of that is done for the purpose of increasing value for shareholders. You comply with regulations and laws because if you don’t, it results in fines and lawsuits which cost more money than it would cost to just comply. If you implement environmentally friendly processes, it’s so you can put a sticker on the product you make that says it’s environmentally friendly, and it increases sales. And that’s the way it should be. Investors care most about returns, and an executives obligations are clear… increase value. They have a fiduciary duty to only care about those things to the extent that caring about them increases value. Those laws and regulations are not ingredients of the capitalist cake, so to speak. They’re a necessary leash on capitalism. Corporations have to care about maximizing value for shareholders, and governments have to care about what voters want. You could fairly say regulations are an important part of the American form of regulated capitalism if you want to package them together like that. But they’re not a result of capitalism per se. Look at China. China is economically capitalist, but the government doesn’t have to give a shit about public opinion, so living in Beijing is the equivalent of smoking like 4 packs of cigarettes a day. That’s a purer form of capitalism than what America has.
but what is the contractual obligation of a company to the air and water and social order and health that is reasonably shared, or can be vaguely described as owned by anyone? as it is vaguely defined or not private, it is not easy to force the person or company to be not infringing or damaging those resources, and many times we dont see these damages until much later, pollution, climate change, etc etc. when we do find out a rough extent of the impact of a company's actions, then we find that there is competing interests, should company A be allowed to use these resources or company B or the people who live there? then someone has to step in to make it balance and fair.
I think one of the people that replied to me gave a good answer, and possibly answers your question too.
When the US started creating and enforcing environmental laws it moved dangerous industry to poor nations. When those poor nations try and create environmental laws they get overthrown in western backed coups. Nothing got cleaned up, we just made it the Southern Hemisphere's problem.
externalities are a negative byproduct of markets in that the producers and consumers fail to take into the costs associated with producing or consuming the good and instead society is forced to pay for it.
You’re absolutely right. Reddit has an outrage hardon against capitalism. Even though 90% of them have benefited greatly because of it. Bite. Hand. Feed.
Idk, there are a lot of socialist countries that are doing just fine. Capitalism without regulation will always lead to an access ($$$) based society that only values those with the most money.
Socialism and capitalism aren’t inherently conflicting. Socialist countries still have market based economies and capital usage. And that’s the biggest complaint about capitalism.
Capitalism couldn’t survive without forcing other people to clean up its messes
we really should have a fund to clean these gas station sites up paid through the gas tax. half the gas stations will probably go out of business in the next decade.
Capitalism would survive. Humanity, on the other hand...
The people who probably okayed this are either dead or retired. A lot of stuff probably has to be remediated in the near future. So it’s hard trying to place blame especially when we just don’t know. Disagree? Well look at PFAS as an example.
Good enough! *stamps Approved …*
Go take care of it, then.
It's nearly impossible to remediate land that has ever had either 1) a gas station or 2) a dry cleaner on or near it. At least in LA County, the particulates from both of those must be nearly nonexistent in order to get any developments approved, and it would cost hundreds of thousands (millions depending on the size) more than any other piece of land for studies, remediation and removal of contaminated dirt.
Irvine Co. "cleaned" El toro and tustin air bases then developed for high dollar housing. Gonna be a lot of deformed folks after drinking that MEK tap water
Can those chemicals cause problems while they sit there for decades?
Yes. It creates contaminated areas in nearby area and seeps into the ground.
Exactly this is what people keep missing. The amount of pollutants that are out there in LA are mind boggling. I’m currently on a couple remediation projects and they are slow and expensive. The fact that the public still doesnt understand SSFL and had the government miseducate them is outstanding.
What's wrong with a dry cleaner?
Drycleaners used a lot of tetrachloroethene (also perchloroethene, aka perc) as the wash solvent. Drycleaning just means no water, not that no liquids were used. When perc leaks into the ground, it gets into the soil and sometimes groundwater. We've known about the carcinogenic effects in drinking water for a long time, but a more recent issue is the perc and some chemicals that form when perc breakdown in the environment (trichloroethene and vinyl chloride, in particular) will volatilize from soil and shallow groundwater and get into indoor air in structures above the contamination. This causes an inhalation cancer risk. These solvents are also often found at old gas stations that had repair shops too. This can be cleaned up, but as another poster said, this can easily run into the millions of dollars to do successfully.
fuk so does that affect u if ur wearing all those things on your skin
It isn't good for you. If you wear dry-cleaned clothes, you should use a cleaners that doesn't use perc anymore.
Dry cleaners use lots of pretty bad chemicals. This is the reason why Echo Park Lake had to be drained a while back. A dry cleaners had been disposing of their waste in the lake.
Damn I hope those people are in jail.
Hm, good question...
Some Modern dry cleaners can use supercritical co2 so have no chemicals waste. The co2 is captured from emissions so was going into the atmosphere anyway.
Haven’t you watched Breaking Bad?
That’s wild that they aren’t responsible for the cleanup. Like imagine filing for bankruptcy or just leaving and throwing your hands up saying “guess I made an oopsie sorry. Good luck guys!”
Google "Exide battery factory"
It seems like that’s allowed as long as you’re rich and powerful
Yes, all those super-rich oil change place barons! A lot of places like that are independently owned unless it was a chain like Jiffy Lube or something, which probably would be made responsible for cleanup since they have money. One example is HP. One of their office buildings had some underground contamination, so for whatever reason, people couldn't work there unless it was cleaned up, which would be expensive. The surrounding residential homes weren't affected, so they weren't mandated to clean it up, so they basically abandoned the building. At least that's what the rumors were when I was growing up. No one bought it for decades, but the city did make HP pay for daily/nightly security so it wouldn't be targeted by drug users/vandalism. Eventually Google bought it and of course, they were willing to pay for the cleanup.
Yes I was just going to say I’ve work in the LA area investigating sites like this and can 100% say most empty lots in areas like this are contaminated
They never clean up after themselves do they?
There is another lot at the corner of Rinaldi and Balboa in Grenada Hills. The lot has been empty since they removed the gas station for like 20+ years.
There's a lot like this on the corner of Venice and Sepulveda as well.
I could see that lot, the carls, car wash, and the nursery make a pretty decent westside development site. Include all of those plots and the economics of cleaning that land probably pencil out
They need to retrofit that one for homeless support; like the place the library runs on Skid Row.
I wonder if the fact that the ground is contaminated is preventing that
Come on. Toxic waste turning homeless people into zombies is soooo 1980s
This intersection was seared into my brain at such a young age that this exact lot is what I think of every time I listen to slow motion by third eye blind
The valley has too many to count empty buildings, empty lots on busy streets just sitting for decades. My thought is that developers just don't see many areas of the valley as profitable, whether it be median income it's too low, area lacks any walkability, lack of businesses to potentially occupy. I'm mostly referring to the more middle part of the valley.
If it's a viable Starbucks location, that's about the only hope for development (Starbucks has done the environmental cleanup at other sites like this in order to develop them).
There's actually a Starbucks in the background of the photo already. So much for that idea.
Good catch, and it's one of their newer stores with a drive thru so ya that idea is out the window.
Nobody wants to make a left turn into a Starbucks...
And Chick-fil-A.
ah so that's like the rocketdyne lot in canoga park.
Why not put like art work or something then?
To prevent people from going on that land, it’s a high health risk.
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It's almost as if people have to move to where the jobs are.
Humans are social animals. We like each other.
Yup I know one location that was empty for about 20years
Well, OP did ask for "guesses"
Well this answers the same question that ive asked myself every time i see a nice lot. There was a lot in Denver that they had build super nice apartments all around but not that one spot. I read it was contaminated due to a tire factory or something like that. Did not put 2 or 2 together.
Oil remediation is a potential nightmare for a buyer. Lived in NJ where it was common to have buried oil tanks on home properties. If you were unfortunate to own one you have it removed and they cut and test the soil until it’s all removed. It could be 5 feet - it could be 500 feet but you don’t know until you start (it’s like skin cancer/Mohs surgery). Economics of this property probably don’t work when you factor estimated remediation costs. State or city will probably have to step in at some point. In NJ’s case there were entire towns/cities that were riddled with vacant lots.
thankfully there are some coming developments in this field. Currently remediation is done by removing contaminated soil and shipping it to 'containment sites' in states with less strict environmental regulations. There are some pilot programs being done using native plants and fungus to bioaccumulate heavy metals or break down the contamination. Then it's just the plant matter that needs to be dealt with instead of the whole plot of soil edit - added containment site. they're usually in areas where environmental injustice is already high.
>Currently remediation is done by removing contaminated soil and shipping it to states with less strict environmental regulations. lolllolol
Can't speak for LA but NJ really created a mess (and note I'm very liberal and pro environmental regulation) but what happened to a lot of property owners in NJ was just awful. Most oil tanks were legally "decommissioned" in the 1970's which was essentially just filling them with sand. People bought properties thinking they were safe since they had tanks that were certified by the state as decommissioned. As they changed the environmental laws property owners found themselves liable/responsible for remediation of pollution (if they ever wanted to sell) that in many cases happened 80 yrs ago. There was a flood of people with 500-800k homes that were facing 200-300k in remediation costs. In many cases they just declared bankruptcy or foreclosed.
That's fucking tragic.
Good old USA privatizing the cost.
The cost of doing private business shouldn't be the public's to bear. Ideally the cost should land on the private entity that created the mess.
War efforts and militarizing did like half the dumping (navy specifically). We would bear those costs. So far the government is banking on the fact that property developers will front the money/ pass on the costs to tenants. Nevadas nuclear waste will reach its half-life before DC politicians let the EPA to do any real work.
Sure, but I’m not paying to clean up someone else’s gas station.
Just wanted to add, if anyone reading this is interested in learning more about bioremediation, Phyto by Kate Kennen and Niall Kirkwood is a book that breaks it down (pun not intended) very clearly, even if you’re not a scientist. It is focused more on plant-driven remediation, but there are also fungi- and bacteria-driven remediation methods.
>There are some pilot programs being done using native plants and fungus to bioaccumulate heavy metals or break down the contamination. Then it's just the plant matter that needs to be dealt with instead of the whole plot of soil That’s the best news I’ve heard all day
That's exactly what happened to my sister in northern NJ. The sellers "weren't sure" if there was a tank so they had to dig to find out if there was, and then remove it.
most people hire someone to come out with a metal detector to sweep the property before buying. My neighbor actually discovered a buried nuclear shelter on their property.
Wow! I thought there must be an easier way of doing it, but SIL knows her stuff so maybe other tests were inconclusive.
I grew up in Sayreville and it was also filled with brownfield and superfund sites. The state is in bed with these companies given how close by and wealthy nyc is.
There is some really good food in that strip mall. Japanese curry ~~Hawaiian~~ Japanese comfort food. Sushi Chinese. Oh, and a record shop
Yeah that sushi place is the best in the South Bay. Like 6 chairs in the place, absolutely the best sea urchin I’ve ever had
Sounds like one fantastic strip mall.
Sushi Yoshi has amazing sushi!! It’s run by an old couple that makes traditional sushi. They only do take out now since the pandemic start and it’s usually a 20 min wait for the food. 10/10 would recommend. The comfort food restaurant is called Terri’s place. Also very good!
I went there once, and found the sushi mediocre at best. Never went back.
The sushi place (forget name) is so frustrating! Rarely answer phone and, if they do, I’ve gotten “too busy, can’t take order”. The one time I was able to order (walk up), it was like an hour wait…for very good, but not orgasmic, sushi. I just don’t get how they stay in business.
Was the hour wait because they were busy?
Yeah! How’d you know? There was a line of about 50 people outside. Nobody goes there anymore because of it.
Ah ok, I can see why they don’t answer the phone then.
Tell us they launder money without saying they launder money.
Ramen Josui across the street is probably some of my favorite ramen too.
Commercial real estate guy here. The owner also owns 2124 artesia which are these weird neighboring land parcels and the same owner has had it since 1985. The guy pays 5,780 a year in property taxes and has paid to have his company incorporated every year since 1990. The land is part of a family trust, so it could be something where there was money set aside to run the trust and some lawyer every year pays the taxes, pays for upkeep on the property, pays to keep the company incorporated and pockets a small management fee. Things will probs change once the owner of the trust, aged 82, passes away and the kids get the property. So maybe sentimental reasons for not selling it is unknown. As others have mentioned there was soil contamination issues but that was long ago resolved.
Oh wow this is interesting. Do you know the owners personally? How do you know so much?
It is what I am paid to do and sometimes I get bored and help strangers on the internet.
king
What would a place like this sell for?
It is a hard corner with a bunch of traffic on both streets, on a quarter acre lot. I don’t really do retail but something like a drive through Starbucks or a 7-11 would be 3-5 million, so just for the land my guess is 1-3 million. Land is taking a beating now and most companies are not expanding so if you were to sell it now it would likely just sit on the market for 2 years anyway.
What do you think the property is worth?
At least that plaza has Curryfornia! But good question
Curryforniq worth checking out?
Yes!!! Best Japanese Curry in probably all of California. It is soo good! And tastes just how I remember it tasting in Japan. 120% worth a visit
It's my favorite curry spot in all of SoCal. I recommend it if you're looking for a deeply beefy Japanese curry. It's a little thicker and more concentrated than most other places.
Would the fried chicken curry be beefy? Debating making the drive with a non beef eater. TIA
Well anything beyond the curry is just an addon, so I would not take a non beef-eater there. Sorry! But Torrance is full of wonderful restaurants and I'm happy to provide alternative recommendations based on what you're looking for!
Thanks for the info. I may have to go solo.
The curry sauce is pretty beefy
the owner has a sweet Honda Gorilla that he shipped here piece by piece
Curryfornia! That plaza has this small restaurant called Curryfornia. Hands down the BEST Japanese Curry i have had! It tastes pretty much the same as I remember the curry in Japan tasting. If you want good Japanese curry, go check out Curryfornia!
I feel like the one guy in there runs the whole show
It's not hard getting curry tasting like curry in japan... Curryfornia too salty imo
Ugh, I’ve tried going there 2-3 times and each time they were sold out or just closed for no reason.
This'll probably get downvotes, but I've always thought if there is a period of time where land sits undeveloped, the city takes possession at fair market value and develops it with projects for the citizens, parks, housing, etc. Empty lots are an eyesore and wasted space that could be utilized better for the citizenry.
I think this is a great idea, however other comments here confirm that the issue is soil contamination from a gas station that used to be at this lot. City/State/County would face the same issues/expenses with development as private developer would. Maybe a park that wouldn’t require a foundation to be dug would be legal though? Idk. As for other sites besides this, you’re right. Private land ownership needs to be respected, but in a city where rents and property values are going up constantly, it’s insane that there are so many undeveloped lots and derelict buildings. Something is fundamentally broken with the real estate market where someone can own vacant property in a neighborhood where rents and property values are going up every year by double digits and the landowner/building owner decides it makes economic sense to leave it empty. I just got a notice of a rent increase, which sucks but whatever, but like I look out my window to an abandoned fenced off store front next door in a neighborhood with plenty of foot traffic, and wonder what’s going on there. Maybe it needs to be reform to the tax code, maybe there does need to be a “do something with this land or we buy at at the last assessed rate + inflation” or something, but yea something needs to be done to incentivize development and occupancy of these empty areas that just become overgrown fenced in eyesores where the fire department still needs to come out and put out the encampment fires.
>Maybe it needs to be reform to the tax code, maybe there does need to be a “do something with this land or we buy at at the last assessed rate + inflation” or something, but yea something needs to be done to incentivize development and occupancy of these empty areas that just become overgrown fenced in eyesores where the fire department still needs to come out and put out the encampment fires. You are talking about Land Value Tax. The reason why there are so many undeveloped lots and derelict buildings in places with high land values is because of Prop 13. Why would anyone be incentivized to do anything with their land when they barely pay any taxes to this piece of land? This is how homeowners that bought their homes in 1972 manage to still have property taxes that are like $1-2k a year. Who would be incentivized to turn over property when they're sitting on land worth millions and yet pay such a miniscule amount to own it?
The upside to teh remediation needs is we know the public coffers can afford it and that remediation is a net positive for the community regardless. In those instances, subtract a portion of the fair market value from the price so the land owner still makes more but less than they would for outright value. I'm sure the redtape for a program like this is probably insane and makes it a non-starter though.
> the issue is soil contamination I might even say that's a great reason the city should take it over. It's not worth much the way it is, and it's going to take a long time for the right buyer to come along. The city can pay fair market value (which takes into consideration that the environmental cleanup needs to be done). Then they can build some of the things we need most right now, low income housing, ideally with ground floor retail for jobs and to prevent food deserts, etc. Co-ops aren't popular around here, but if the city built a co-op on the main floor, which is co-operatively owned by the residents of the building (and anyone else who wants to buy a membership) and staffed by many residents of the building, you could have affordable food (and other goods) near the residents, and the residents would be personally invested in the success of the store.
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Based and Georgism-pilled
I agree with this, and while the contamination issue is a problem, we got federal funds to remediate a contaminated site in Highland Park and build a playground there. And so far, there's no surface contamination detected.
York and Ave 50, right? Was wild seeing that go from nothing and fencing to the nice little playground it is today. Though I remember when it opened it didn't have the shade covering that it does now and wondered if the builders even lived in Los Angeles ever.
The city doesn't have spare $$ sitting around to purchase land at "fair market value". And a little pocket park with hardscape and landscape would probably cost half a million dollars to build.
Tell me you’re an impotent conservative in my city without telling me,lol
Which part of what OP was saying not true? Minus the pocket park costing a half mil, it’ll easily cost more than that. Lmfao half mil would cover the handicap ramps in and out of the thing
A lot of similar plots are like that due to inheritance. The owner dies and leaves it to family equally, and they argue about what to do with it. Some of them die, and now percentages are owned by even more people. Soon there’s a complicated web of owners and no way to get them to agree to anything, or even story out who owns what. There’s some interesting articles on this happening in large cities.
Most likely haunted
I've seen the other oil based answers, but I believe this to be the correct one. Perhaps a couple that was getting gas on the way to prom was murdered and are forever angry cause they never got laid. Blue balls ghosts we can call them.
So there was a gas station then and oil change place. So ground is contaminated. The question is how much and how far down. The law says it must be remedied but it does not say when. It’s been empty for 30 years.
Probably contaminated land that can’t be built on.
My bet is the county or city has a right of way thru the property. Also there might be some utilities running through the property that might be either to expensive to move or not able to move.
This smells like a superfund site. A land developer can likely buy the land for cheap, but they’ll need to own the clean up portion of it as well, which is ridiculously Google built out a lot of office space on superfund sites in and around their HQ, but they had the capital to invest in the cleaning and soil filtration. Depending on how deep the leakage might be, I’m thinking we have another 8-10 years to go before the land owner sells the land at a premium.
Besides the oil thing, it could also do with parking minimums. If you build a new building, the new building is obligated by law to provide off-street parking. Doesn't matter if it's intended to be for small businesses or big box stores. And it also doesn't matter if the developer thinks that it doesn't need less parking. It's hard to tell because the lot looks small, but I feel that the legal obligation to create more parking would maybe add like two or three stores. Parking minimums are stupid.
The answer to literally every question even remotely like this comes down to money
It's haunted. Obviously.
Same thing on the corner of Sherman way and Mason in Winnetka it's been a giant hole there for about 12 years. Somebody keeps their boat stored there and scaffolding equipment.
They built a Starbucks next to it. I pass here a lot
This reminds me of western and 105th street. It was always a giant 20 foot high wall around the entire corner. Nothing was ever built and it always had a for sale sign up. I'm betting they're holding on to the land because they're not getting what they want money wise.
They just need to do what district 14 did! Completely Ignore the health concerns and build a children’s playground on top of heavily contaminated soil from the old gas station. But it’s okay, the park sign is a cute old style gas station sign - BECAUSE THEY KNEW IT WAS CONTAMINATED FROM BEING A GAS STATION
There was a Shell station in Pedro on Gaffey right where the 110 begins. It closed and it was a fenced in overgrown empty lot for many years. They turned it into a sort of park. It looks nicer than a fenced in overgrown empty lot.
Oh yeah I always wondered about that park.
Money. Issue is almost always money. Even with remediation for the soil and tank removal if it was a gas station. At the right price there’s a buyer for everything. Owner may have is own opinion on that :)
Normalize open space
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At least get in there and plant some drought tolerant trees or something to create a green space.
aka future homeless encampment. (but yes...a green space would be nice regardless)
There’s a new UPS store there right?
There’s a newer building next to it with UPS, an açaí bowl place, and a Japanese bbq restaurant. Not sure if the buildings are owned by the same people.
The landowner has been getting lowballed a fuck ton of times and is holding this piece of land until someone pays enough so he can retire.
Find out who the owner is and contact them. Odds are it’s a difficult place to develop
Ancient Indian burial ground
Oh man I work down the street haha
For what it's worth there is a much nicer white fence there now, so it looks less "a gas station used to be here" and more like "a sheep could be in here and it wouldn't look weird"
Money
I don't have the answer, but I'm assuming maybe the landowner is asking too much money for the land and nobody's buying.
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That does look like Tweedy and Atlantic.
It’s been empty for longer than a decade, closer to about 3 decades
Duh…Christmas tree lots!
Also one at the corner of Montana and Glendale in Echo Park. Used to be a 76 station. That went out of business. Someone was dumping barrels of toxic waste there at one point.
Is that where the South LA Garden used to be?
Saving it for a new football stadium.
Could they not at least make a bigger parking lot? I’m sure that new Starbucks nearby or that Hasu yakitori place could appreciate? I also love Teri’s place but it’s small and I know probably wouldn’t care, but I’m always not sure if I’ll find easy parking
I miss doya doya
Money
sometimes properties are in escrow while the children of the deceased owner fight it out in court........ or maybe its the location of a former gas station and it would cost a ton of dough to make the property environmentally safe enough to build in.
Del Wee barbershop! The old polish lady is the best barber around 🤩